Despite the weakest matchup in its five-year history, the Silicon Valley Football Classic is set to turn a profit before the first ticket is sold, thanks to NCAA rule changes.

The two participating schools -- Northern Illinois University Huskies and the Troy University Trojans -- are virtual unknowns in Silicon Valley but their eagerness to get their football teams on a national stage has all but ensured the Silicon Valley Football Classic will be back in 2005.

NIU and Troy are accepting no upfront money for appearing in the 2004 game to be played on Dec. 30 at Spartan Stadium. Each is on the hook for 8,000 tickets, at $45 apiece, representing a $720,000 financial commitment from the two schools. Throw in $100,000 each for Hewlett-Packard and the city of San Jose as principal bowl sponsors and $300,000 from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) and the combined $1.2 million is about $200,000 over the 2004 bowl committee's budget. Several smaller sponsors are expected to be announced before the Dec. 30 game, bowl officials say.

Most of the resulting profit will be earmarked for the 2005 game, which organizers hope will feature more familiar West Coast team. An undisclosed amount will be donated to the bowl's designated charity, After-School All-Stars.

"We have to build back the revenue that will allow us to move up the pecking order," says Daniel Fenton, president of the Silicon Valley Football Classic as well as president and chief executive officer of the San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau.

UCLA and Fresno State were paid $575,000 each to appear in the 2003 Silicon Valley Football Classic.

The 2004 participants will receive 200 free hotel rooms and discounts on another 450 rooms each, just as past bowl participants did. Northern Illinois has already sold out the San Jose Hilton while Troy University will put up its players at the Doubletree Hotel. Conference and NCAA officials will be staying at the Fairmont Hotel.

"We don't look at this as a financial opportunity," says NIU Athletic Director James Phillips. "It is more of an opportunity to expose the university to a wider audience."

The only roadblock to a 2005 game is a new NCAA stipulation that a 2004 bowl game must draw 70 percent occupancy or 25,000 fans to ensure recertification in 2005. The 2003 Silicon Valley Football Classic drew just over 21,000 to the 30,000-seat Spartan Stadium for its Fresno State-UCLA game and just over 10,000 for its 2002 game pitting Fresno State and Georgia Tech University.

"We know we will be evaluated on our ability to put people in the stands," Mr. Fenton says.

ESPN2 will televise the 8 p.m. game live from Spartan Stadium.

"We look at this as a three-hour commercial for Troy," says TU Athletic Director Scott Farmer. This is Troy's first bowl game; NIU hasn't been in a bowl game since 1983.

Most of the advertising and sponsorship will come from trade outs with the San Jose Mercury News, KNBR 680, an all-sports station based in San Francisco, and VTA. Plans call for less than $50,000 to be spent on paid advertising, mostly in the South Bay.

The game is also important to San Jose's downtown hotels that have been otherwise virtually empty on the last weekend of the year in recent years. The 2003 game had an estimated $7.8 million economic impact on the city of San Jose, bowl officials claim.

To get people in the stands, bowl organizers will offer deep corporate discounts to large and small companies -- some ticket packages include a free dinner party the night before the game, and a pre-game tailgate party can be had for as little as $10 a ticket, Mr. Fenton says.

"The key is that they have to have the people actually in the stands," he says.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 tickets were sold locally in 2003, bowl organizers say. That number must increase to ensure NCAA recertification.

This is the first year the bowl hasn't featured Fresno State, and the 8,000 to 10,000 fans that the team brings with them.

"It's a tough test for the bowl, but it can't become the Fresno State bowl," says WAC Commissioner Karl Benson. "I know (San Jose) is a tough market but what we needa is the... community support."

The 2004 Silicon Valley Football Classic has contracts with the WAC to bring either its second- or third-place team and the Pacific 10 Conference for its seventh-place team. However, WAC officials found more lucrative bowl games for its bowl-eligible teams and the seventh-place Pac-10 team didn't have the NCAA-required six wins to qualify for a bowl slot.

However, with most Pac-10 teams playing 12 games next year, a West Coast team is more likely to be eligible to play in Silicon Valley. Mr. Benson says the WAC is committed to supporting the Silicon Valley Football Classic over the long-term.

"This has been a very unusual year," Mr. Benson says. "We are committed to the bowl -- we fully expect to have a WAC team in the 2005 bowl."

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